In a
recent post there was discussion of Henry Kuttner’s The Salem Horror (1937)—see A
Brother of the Old Ones. After
reading Kuttner’s work, it was interesting to reread the story that was
probably the inspiration for The Salem
Horror, H.P. Lovecraft’s The Dreams
in the Witch-House.
Lovecraft’s
story was published in Weird Tales in July of 1933, along with
Clark Ashton Smith’s Cthulhu Mythos inspired Ubbo-Sathla, and another Hazel Heald/H.P. Lovecraft collaboration, The Horror in the Museum.
The Salem Horror and The Dreams in the Witch-House share several interesting
similarities and differences. Alert readers
will notice that the witch in Kuttner’s story, ‘Abigail Prinn’ is a likely
descendent of Ludvig Prinn, Lovecraft’s fictional author of De Vermis Mysterii. Abigail Prinn and Lovecraft’s evil old
crone, Keziah Mason both disappeared in 1692—evidently a difficult year for
witches. In both stories the lead
character succumbs by degrees to the overpowering will of the witch’s evil
spirit, and does her bidding almost unconsciously until the final climactic
struggle. Both witches are bent on
invoking at least one of the Old Ones.
Of
the two stories, Lovecraft’s is by far the most ambitious and elaborate. The Dreams
in the Witch-House is also one of Lovecraft’s most abstract. His lead character Walter Gilman is a student
of “non-Euclidean calculus and quantum physics”, as well as occult
folklore. In a wonderful bit of
understatement, the author writes
“Non-Euclidean
calculus and quantum physics are enough to stretch any brain; and when one
mixes them with folklore, and tries to trace a strange background of
multi-dimensional reality behind the ghoulish hints of the Gothic tales and the
wild whispers of the chimney-corner, one can hardly expect to be wholly free
from mental tension.”
Unlike
Kutter’s character in The Salem Horror,
Gilman actively seeks out the experience of living in a witch-haunted old
house. In fact, it is part of his
research—and perhaps Lovecraft’s as well:
how does the supernatural interface with the rigor of science and
mathematics? How can supernatural events
be given substantiation and realism through the ‘scientific method’? (A similar approach can be seen in
contemporary TV shows like SyFy’s Ghost
Hunters.)
There
is tension between the supernatural elements and science in many of Lovecraft’s
later stories. The irresolvable tension
between these very different ways of experiencing phenomena is also reflected
in the fact that Lovecraft’s work in the late 1930s is transitional, occurring just on the eve of the “Golden Age of
Science Fiction”. But he was still a
horror writer primarily, even this late in his career.
The
gist of The Dreams in the Witch-House is
a series of dreams and visions that overlap with disturbing events in the real
world, (for example, the kidnapping of a child). It takes place in Arkham, the
Lovecraftian version of Salem, Massachusetts.
Kuttner’s story was also set in Salem, and Lovecraft at one point
advised Kuttner on the finer points of local geography and architecture. Both tales employ the device of having the witches’
earthly remains hidden but located in close proximity to the victim of the
psychic possession. Both include a
rodent familiar that leads the character into the vortex of the witch’s
power. But Lovecraft’s ‘Brown Jenkin’ is
the more horrific of the two critters, almost as monstrous as the witch herself.
Near
the end, it is remarkable that a crucifix and its chain are used as an
effective weapon against Keziah Mason, the witch. It is not science
that saves Gilman—temporarily at least—but the religious and superstitious
beliefs of his Polish housemates. Lovecraft
uses a similar motif in Psychopompos (1919),
where a crucifix wards off a pack of wolves led by a vengeful were-wolf. (Recall that in Kuttner’s story the witch’s
familiar was held at bay with a simple cross marked on the floor in front of
its burrow.) It is fascinating that the
work of this avowed atheist is filled with Christian imagery from the very beginning
of his career.
Typical
of Lovecraft’s later work, there are significantly more characters in The Dreams in the Witch-House. The
story is written in the third person, without Lovecraft’s more typical first
person narrator. There is greater
differentiation beyond the typical autobiographical core of a Lovecraft story.
This appears to be a kind of progression in Lovecraft’s work over time, as he
gained skill with managing more than one character in a story. Several
of the characters are interesting monsters: the witch, her familiar, and the mysterious
‘black man’—who may be the Lovecraftian messenger god Nyarlathotep. Walter Gilman, the lead character also
interacts with a fellow student and some stereotyped housemates of Polish
ancestry.
The Dreams in the Witch-House is essentially about psychic
possession, a theme that Lovecraft has handled very ably in a number of his
short stories and novellas, among them The
Haunter of the Dark (1936), The
Shadow Out of Time (1936) The Thing
on the Doorstep (1937), and The
Strange Case of Charles Dexter Ward (1941). To a certain extent, the theme
is present in earlier tales such as The
Rats in the Walls (1924) and Beyond the
Wall of Sleep (1919). Judging by his
fictional output, the author seems to have been preoccupied with the notion of
psychic possession especially in his last years.
(Fans
of Lovecraft’s fiction may find it interesting to compare the fate of Robert
Blake in The Haunter of the Dark to
that of Walter Gilman in The Dreams in
the Witch-House. In both stories the
gateway to another dimension is a shape with unusual angles—a “shining trapezohedron”
in the first story, and a room with odd angles in The Dreams in the Witch-House.)
Despite
his literary skill and considerable scholarship, Lovecraft never completed high
school and was unable to attend college.
One can speculate whether the character of Walter Gilman represents a
kind of wish fulfillment for the author:
to at least imagine being a brilliant university student doomed by a hazardous
inquiry.
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